TITLE: Anya/Anyanka/Aud
AUTHOR: Maid M
PAIRING: Slight Anya/Xander, but it's not the plot of the story
DISCLAIMER: If I owned it, Buffy would so still be on. Unfortunately, I don't. sniff
AUTHORS NOTE: Thank you to Lilyhead for bitching me into writing fanfiction and to Joss Whedon for creating the wonderful character of Anya for me to butcher. Kudos.
* * *
The oldest memory Aud had of her mother was at age 16, the year she went to live with Olaf.
The years before were a blur, faces sliding in and out of focus. Hands, brown hair soft in her fingers, a wooden spoon rotating round and round in a rough clay bowl. Nothing solid, nothing tangible, snapshots of a life too far away that faded into nothing when you think too much on them.
She remembers her mother handing over her bundle of belongings, wrapped in a ragged strip of cloth. It contained nothing but a spare shift and wooden spoon of her own. Just as she was turning to start her new life, her mother gripped her by the shoulder. Placing the soft round body of her rabbit in her work worn hands, she said:
"Make something of yourself."
And she was gone. Aud didn't ever see her mother again. She never left the house. That wasn't making something of herself.
Hundreds of years she plundered mankind. She was a terror; people recoiled at her name. Anyanka. She was a demon, a she-devil, a wolf. But she wasn't making something of herself. Not yet.
The day she lost her powers Anyanka hit rock bottom. Trapped back in the body of the 17-year-old girl she thought she had left far behind. Memories came rushing back at her then, things she hadn't thought on for longer than most people live. "Make something of yourself." Now she could and a certain brown-eyed boy was going to get her there.
When Xander proposed she was certain that her life was set out for her. Children, a roomy house (next to Buffy's of coarse), a dog, a tool shed in the backyard where Xander could carve wooden cradles with his own two hands. Her standing in the kitchen with an electric beater in hand, turning it around in an aluminium bowl mixing dough for cookies. It was all perfect. All laid out on a silver platter just waiting for her.
She blamed Xander when things went wrong. When she turned back to vengeance, the trouble she was having with it. The worm, the spider; all shallow, all futile. It was almost like she was over doing it. Had it been that hard before? She didn't remember. Sometimes it just felt too far away.
It didn't surprise her when D'Hoffryn kicked her out. She knew she didn't belong there any more. She had tasted the life of an average American and she could never go back on that.
When the First was drawing closer and closer she felt herself growing closer to Xander again. Near the end it was almost like before. Pet names, touching, talking like nothing had ever happen. If they got through this maybe it could be the same again. Maybe they could make some kind of life. Together. As a family.
"Make something of yourself."
Before Anya felt the bite of the sword on her shoulder she realised she couldn't remember her mother's face.
THE END
AUTHOR: Maid M
PAIRING: Slight Anya/Xander, but it's not the plot of the story
DISCLAIMER: If I owned it, Buffy would so still be on. Unfortunately, I don't. sniff
AUTHORS NOTE: Thank you to Lilyhead for bitching me into writing fanfiction and to Joss Whedon for creating the wonderful character of Anya for me to butcher. Kudos.
* * *
The oldest memory Aud had of her mother was at age 16, the year she went to live with Olaf.
The years before were a blur, faces sliding in and out of focus. Hands, brown hair soft in her fingers, a wooden spoon rotating round and round in a rough clay bowl. Nothing solid, nothing tangible, snapshots of a life too far away that faded into nothing when you think too much on them.
She remembers her mother handing over her bundle of belongings, wrapped in a ragged strip of cloth. It contained nothing but a spare shift and wooden spoon of her own. Just as she was turning to start her new life, her mother gripped her by the shoulder. Placing the soft round body of her rabbit in her work worn hands, she said:
"Make something of yourself."
And she was gone. Aud didn't ever see her mother again. She never left the house. That wasn't making something of herself.
Hundreds of years she plundered mankind. She was a terror; people recoiled at her name. Anyanka. She was a demon, a she-devil, a wolf. But she wasn't making something of herself. Not yet.
The day she lost her powers Anyanka hit rock bottom. Trapped back in the body of the 17-year-old girl she thought she had left far behind. Memories came rushing back at her then, things she hadn't thought on for longer than most people live. "Make something of yourself." Now she could and a certain brown-eyed boy was going to get her there.
When Xander proposed she was certain that her life was set out for her. Children, a roomy house (next to Buffy's of coarse), a dog, a tool shed in the backyard where Xander could carve wooden cradles with his own two hands. Her standing in the kitchen with an electric beater in hand, turning it around in an aluminium bowl mixing dough for cookies. It was all perfect. All laid out on a silver platter just waiting for her.
She blamed Xander when things went wrong. When she turned back to vengeance, the trouble she was having with it. The worm, the spider; all shallow, all futile. It was almost like she was over doing it. Had it been that hard before? She didn't remember. Sometimes it just felt too far away.
It didn't surprise her when D'Hoffryn kicked her out. She knew she didn't belong there any more. She had tasted the life of an average American and she could never go back on that.
When the First was drawing closer and closer she felt herself growing closer to Xander again. Near the end it was almost like before. Pet names, touching, talking like nothing had ever happen. If they got through this maybe it could be the same again. Maybe they could make some kind of life. Together. As a family.
"Make something of yourself."
Before Anya felt the bite of the sword on her shoulder she realised she couldn't remember her mother's face.
THE END